2023-07-12 09:07:29
Scientists at Arizona State University are making lithium-sodium materials to pave the way for cheaper batteries and alleviate the global lithium supply problem.
Lithium is becoming the new gold, with skyrocketing use in lithium-ion batteries in electric cars, computers and wearable devices driving up the price and affecting the supply of this relatively rare metal.
Scientists have recently explored the possibility of doing away with lithium altogether and instead using sodium or other elements in high-quality batteries. Sodium is cheaper and more available (it’s found in seawater as sodium chloride), but it does have drawbacks, and lithium batteries are still the best, in terms of providing the concentrated charge needed to power cars and portable devices.
PhD student Tullio Geraci and Professor Alexandra Navrotsky are fabricating lithium-sodium materials and characterizing their structures, homogeneity, and thermodynamic properties. The researchers use a specialized technique developed and optimized in the Navrotsky laboratory (high-temperature oxide melt solution calorimetry) to measure the energetic stability of materials, while heating experiments determine their potential decomposition in use.
Presenting his findings at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference, Tullio Geraci said: “We’ve been mixing small amounts of sodium with lithium, testing its stability, and then seeing how it works. It’s a step-by-step process, and when we first started, the stability wasn’t promising first we need to see if the mix stays in a usable form but as we increased the stability of the sodium content got better so far we have achieved a 10% mix and it seems ok still it’s thermodynamically stable. We think we can increase this to around 20% before we see a significant difference in performance.”
Tullio Geraci continued: “At first we weren’t sure if these Li/Na dilutions could be done. Surprisingly, we found that weak dilutions tend to decompose, the solutions losing their homogeneity and crystal structure that is important for producing a battery. But as we increase the amount of sodium, the material becomes more stable.Once we have arrived at the optimum combination, we must hand our findings over to battery technologists to produce the first sodium-lithium batteries.We believe these are the first steps in the development of a new battery technology”.
This represents work in progress and has not yet been peer-reviewed, Eureka Alert reports.
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